Page 16 of Mercy in Betrayal

“This is me.” She gives a nervous smile, glances out the window, and when she looks back, she wears a look of worry.

“Would you like me to walk you up?” I ask.

She immediately answers. “No!” She clears her throat. “No, thank you. For helping me.” I nod, and she stares at me for a moment. Her eyelids flutter closed until they rest on her cheeks before she looks at me again. Her blue eyes are soft and vulnerable.

“What happened tonight…with the robbery.” She pauses and frowns. “I needed to see your kind of goodness after that. Doing something kind for a stranger without asking anything in return. You have no idea what this means to me.”

I’m tempted to reach out and touch her, but I keep my hands loose and relaxed in my lap. “I would hope anyone would have done the same,” I say.

She smiles sadly. “I don’t think so.”

I look away and meet my driver's gaze in the rearview mirror. He nods and gets out.

I offer a final smile to Rowan. “Take care,” I say as her door opens.

A breeze fills the back of the car, and she unbuckles her belt and gathers her phone. “Thanks, again.”

She exits the car and walks to the front of the apartment that’s guarded. One of the guards ducks his head to see into the back, but my driver swiftly closes the door, cutting me off from prying eyes. I watch until Rowan disappears into the building.

No good will enter her life if you do. That fucking ghost.

The sad truth is, he’s right.

Chapter 6

Rowan

I feel like a child. A small, insignificant child.

The chair from the dining room table is hard-backed and stiff, making me sit up straight. Evie and Cassidy pace in front of me, and I can’t tell who is the angrier.

Fragments of the vase from the dining table litter the floor next to the wall, the wall that it met when Cassidy flung it. Winter roses scatter the glass remnants, broken amid the water Meredith is dying to mop up.

She’s hovering in the kitchen on the other side of the island, a dustpan in hand to collect the glass with, her mouth pinched. I give her a tiny smile from the corner of my mouth, rolling my lips inward as I do. Meredith isn’t comfortable enough yet to tell Cassidy what to do.

Unlucky for me.

From his place on my lap, Clementine pushes his head into my chest, and I absentmindedly stroke his back. Pup is nowhere to be seen, conspicuously absent ever since Cassidy’s voice rose. He’s probably under their bed.

“What the hell were you thinking, coming home on your own?” he roars now.

“You’re not in Limerick anymore, Rowan,” Evie adds. “You know this. The city is bigger and more dangerous than you could ever imagine.”

Cassidy runs a hand through his hair, already standing straight up. “Jaysus, when I think what could’ve happened—”

Brouhaha. As in “they sure were making a big brouhaha over nothing.”

The word tumbles around my mind as I stare at Evie and Cassidy without really seeing them, murmuring “mmhmm” at the appropriate times.

“We’re already taking every possible precaution for your safety. For you to just blatantly ignore them—”

“Are you even listening?” Evie cuts Cassidy off suddenly, narrowing her gaze upon me.

I sigh. Time to join the conversation. “I just think you’re overreacting. I met an eighteen-year-old who flew all the way here from Okayama City, Japan. It was the first time he had ever been out of his country, and his parents didn’t accompany him.”

My brother stops and stares, cocking his head at an incredulous angle. “Is that who you were with? This kid?”

I sigh again, more heavily this time. He doesn’t get it. “No, I told you. I stayed after class to have coffee with some of the new students, and one of them gave me a ride home.”

---